Talk:Tannhäuser
I like how, in this scene, Peggy reflects "Jenkins might be a queer, but he knew a little something about diplomacy." What, a diplomat knowing a little something about diplomacy? Well don't that beat all. Turtle Fan 20:40, July 30, 2010 (UTC) Oh, know what else I just realized? Whenever a fiction writer wants to illustrate that Nazi VIPs are attending an event, they always identify Goering and Goebbels by name. I guess because their names are so close alphabetically? Turtle Fan 23:13, July 31, 2010 (UTC) :That, and they are the VIP of VIPs. Plus, whenever one reads the historical record, they do seem to be at the same places often enough. TR 02:01, August 1, 2010 (UTC) ::Himmler and perhaps Ribbentrop, at least, were on the same level. As for alignment of their historical movements, I'd never really noticed. Turtle Fan 02:59, August 1, 2010 (UTC) Since this is about as good a place as any to talk about the, umm, ramifications (or maybe I should call them the "RAM"-ifications) of going to see Tannhauser, I noticed that in the next scene Peggy is beating herself up because she betrayed Herb, whom she loved so very very much. . . . You mean, the guy you mentioned once in the first book, and only in passing? When George Enos betrayed Sylvia, or when Victor Radcliff betrayed Meg, we knew they were upset because they had hurt people they deeply cared about. And we had seen that they deeply cared about their spouses. This "Oh, yeah, Herb! How I love Herb! Umm, I think about him all the time when . . . when it's not my turn to narrate the action! Yeah!" That kind of cheap characterization tells us that we're not reading Breakthroughs or Tilting the Balance anymore, but even it is still much more than we got in HW. Turtle Fan 02:59, August 1, 2010 (UTC) :For me it was less the Herb is far away thing and more the "what purpose does this bit of adultery serve" moment. Almost immediately after that takes place Jenkins comes up with the "write Hitler a letter" idea. And Hitler personally calls Peggy and sends her to Denmark. And then Peggy is allowed on to Sweden. I'm probably clutching at straws, but I really feel as if Jenkins is going to come back and say "Guess what--you committed adulter and you have a direct line to Hitler. You work for the______Spy Agency now. If you don't like it, I can always send a cable to Herb.....". :Does that sound too far-fetched? TR 03:22, August 1, 2010 (UTC) ::No, I guess it could work. Actually I'm resigning myself to Peggy as a non-spy. Having her be a spy would be very predictable, and while predictable is good if unpredictable is even worse than predictable--like Gizzi and his brags about the fact that Featherston did not use amphetamines in TG--as I stop chomping at the bit for her to start spying, already, I come to realize that a stranded traveler who's encoutering all sorts of exciting new things in pursuit of nothing more than the pedestrian goal of going home. ::And, yes, I do wonder about the adultery serving a higher purpose. Maybe Constantine feels more kindly inclined toward her now, and is willing to do more for her. Maybe he regrets it as much as she does and wants to be rid of her. Or maybe it was just gratuitous--gratuitous sex has been making a comeback in HT's novels of the last two or three years. The last two Gap novels were particularly bad in that area. (Well they were bad in every area in which it's possible to be bad, including several which had never occurred to me before.) Turtle Fan 04:02, August 1, 2010 (UTC)